Fishwife's Guide To Planning a Successful Business Launch

0:00You cannot overlook how much money you will save if you build that foundation properly. Like, you know, we're talking hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. Hey, what's going on? It's Shuang Esther Shan, and this is Shopify Masters, your companion for starting and building a business. The latest and hottest food item taking over social media is tinned fish, and we got Fish Wife to thank for this phenomenon. Founder Becca Milstein got inspiration during lockdowns to change the canned food industry by offering ethically sourced premium seafood in beautifully designed tints. In just three years, the Fishwife team gained hundreds and thousands of followers, successfully pitched on Shark Tank, and can be found in national retailers like Whole Foods.

0:53Becca will share how you can make a splash with your launch on a limited budget and how to develop a supply chain that you can be proud of. Thank you, Becca, for coming on to the show. Thank you, Shweing, for having me on the show. I am so excited because I am all in on the tin fish talk. And I feel like Fish Wife was the brand that kicked off everything. Feels like you've been around forever, but it's only been three short years. And right when you launched, it was just an explosion. So can you talk to us about how to have a successful launch where the content is shareable and it seems like you can just hit the ground running?

1:39Great question. Yes, it's been three years. Feels like a century of my life and I've got the gray hairs to prove it. But yes. So I think what is really important when you are starting to build a brand is to just have a grassroots mindset sort of at every point. So what does that really mean? You're not necessarily going to have all the biggest influencers and celebrities posting about your brand in the first couple of weeks. But what you can have is everyone in your life, your closest friends, your family, your cousins, you can have them start to get really excited about it and start to share in their networks.

2:21And that feels, you know, it sounds really micro, but I just encourage people to think of building their brand, you know, outwards into sort of concentric circles.

2:37so you start in this little small circle and just get all those people so excited about it and posting about it and sharing it with their friends and it really will if the product is novel and the brand is great and the product is good it will continue to grow and grow and grow out from there and eventually you know it happens for all of us at different points depending on you know where we start where our connections are day one. If the product is really great, it will eventually get into the hands of those influencers and celebrities. It's just a matter of time.

3:15But yeah, I think just keep a really sort of micro community driven approach at the start of your launch because it will ultimately be impactful. And that's really the network effect, right? One person impacts and talks about it and then their friends or family knows about it. And then before you know it, there's a whole butterfly effect of events. And what's amazing is you had a very limited marketing budget. So what are your tips for creating a splash marketing wise when you don't have a budget for it? Yeah, I think this answers will be both really encouraging and maybe discouraging to some people, which is that if you have a truly innovative product and you have a really great brand and the product is really good, and yes, again, the brand is really strong and it looks really, you know, just attractive and appealing to people and translates over social media, the marketing will come very, very cheaply because people will be so excited about your product.

4:18That network effect will kind of spring into action and people will just begin, you know, giving it to their friends, sharing it with their friends, and eventually it's going to end up in the hands of, you know, a journalist or an influencer. It's encouraging because if you truly believe in your product and the brand that you've created, then, you know, marketing, it will be cheap. And if you don't, I would really encourage people to invest that time into, A, you know, making sure this is a space that people should be innovating in. It's not so completely deeply oversaturated, you know, that there maybe isn't a space or I think you can still find it obviously a space in a very saturated category, but you really do have to take a new brand positioning or obviously sort of new product formula.

5:04But that is the first piece of advice that I would give to folks is just really have validation that your product needs to exist and that people want it, which you can do in a number of ways. You know, for example, we did a market test where we had created the visuals of the brand, had created the name of the brand, and had all these samples from canneries that we were talking about, you know, we were working on developing products with. And we did this tiny little micro launch of 100 beta boxes, which sold out in less than an hour. And, you know, it was just very clear from the get that people were excited about the product.

5:44But I think the first step you have to take is figuring out if people want this product to exist and then making a really great product and a really great brand. And it will make everything just infinitely cheaper.

6:02Because that's the foundation, right? Like that lays the groundwork for everything else you're trying to do as well. It is the foundation. I just think you cannot overlook like how much money you will save if you build that foundation properly. Like, you know, we're talking hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars of paying really, really expensive billboard campaigns or out of home campaigns or influencers. Or, you know, when it gets to retail, building for really expensive displays that maybe you could get, you know, much reduced or for free if you truly have an innovative and really exciting product.

6:42So it seems like kind of an afterthought, but like if you do have that amazing brand from the outset, it's just going to make your life so much easier. So really, really, really invest in making sure you feel validated that you've created as compelling a brand and as high quality a product as possible. I think beyond that product seeding, we have a budget for it, but we really do kind of just think it has immeasurable value. you know if you are seeding to the right folks in the right communities which I mean there's hundreds of thousands of people that are invested in you know let's say just the foodie community whether they have 5 ,000 followers or a million followers there's just so much value in getting you know and just getting your product into the hands of folks that have influence you know in their small community or their huge community so we definitely invested from the get just a ton into seeding, which is, you know, it's pretty obvious.

7:39It's easier when you have, you know, let's say a smaller product or a less expensive product. So I think our product is definitely not expensive, but it is small enough to be able to send to influencers. I think if you have a product that is like really big or really expensive, let's say, I don't know, I had a friend that had a tequila company and sending full bottles of tequila, you know, all over the place, You know, you just you had to be more conscious about who you could send to because it was a big investment per seeding. So they invested into making sample sizes of their tequila bottle.

8:18So little little samples so they could more readily seed. So I would definitely encourage folks to think about that at some point. You know, is there more, let's say, like snackable or just a smaller version of your product if you do have a really expensive, large product? I think the success of Fish Wife's launch really has a few components. The product was something that was desperately needed in this category. And then your seeding program was really impactful working with different creators and influencers. And I think lastly, the branding is so eye-catching and unique. So how did you approach creating the brand visuals with your illustrator?

8:57Great question. So I think, I mean, this sort of dovetails into our whole philosophy about just authenticity, really, you know, you'll hear it all the time. And it just is true. Like, authenticity is the key to, I think, brand success, especially on something like social media, but, you know, just generally across the brand. So I found Danny Danbo Miller. He's our illustrator and has been working. You know, I've been working side by side with him for now three and a half years. You know, when you're creating a brand, there are several ways you can go to figure out how to create the visuals, you know, the logo, the name, etc.

9:41There's kind of our end of the spectrum where a friend of mine, her name's Greer, she came up with a name for the brand. And then, you know, I went into my own network and found Dani. I also, you know, looked at a bunch of other illustrators on Instagram. um, and surveyed, you know, friends and family who they felt most drawn to, and then just, you know, ultimately made the call that Danny was the right person, and Danny was a freelance illustrator. Um, so that's kind of like one end of the spectrum where you are really kind of grassrootsing it, just pulling it all together, um, in-house, so to speak.

10:15And then kind of on the far end of the spectrum, you would go and find, you know, a large branding agency or a branding house, um, to, you know, invest in, and they would support you. You would work closely with them to create the brand. So you can go either way. I think it's just a, what's your budget? And there are branding agencies of, I think, to match a lot of budgets. But if you have a propensity or your co-founder or maybe an early employee, if you have one, has a propensity for branding, I would highly encourage people to build it in-house just because that authenticity piece will be even more seamless.

10:56Like you can obviously create an incredibly authentic and beautiful and genius brand working with a branding agency. But if you're able to do it yourself, A, that is where you will truly potentially save hundreds of thousands of dollars. And it's gonna be really fun. So that's kind of, so Danny and I just, you know, we had, you know, some, I created sort of an inspiration board from him to work off of, which included, you know, a handful of brands that I really, really loved. I think it was Topo Chico, Cafe Bustelo, Keller Beer. I feel like there was one more. It wasn't a lot. It was like a very focused selection.

11:35Oh yeah. And then just sort of lastly, the classic Spanish and Portuguese conservas. So those are kind of like, it was a very, it was a very narrow focus, very narrow inspiration, which I would encourage people to, you know, strive towards as well, just because it'll make it so much easier for your designer, your illustrator to execute on your vision. And then we obviously had this like central figure of the fishwife that we could start to riff off of. And that is an entire world to build in. I sort of gave Danny that inspiration and then obviously gave him the name. And then he started creating different iterations of logos and sort of the fishwife herself, different iterations of her.

12:15And then I think one thing we've done, which is quite different from other brands, and it's either really dumb or maybe smart, is we like are quite fast and loose with our overall like visuals and logos and branding. Like we have, I don't know, we probably have like 30 logos that we regularly use, which is truly insane. But we are just like constantly evolving the brand.

12:53so like it just looks it looks the same as it did three years ago in some ways because it's still Danny's you know brilliant hand that's putting pen to paper and drawing all of these you know all these logos all this topography um all the illustrations but we just really let the brand evolve. So like last year, for example, we really leaned into halftone illustration, which has like, you know, the drop shadow of the text, for example, or the illustration is filled in with little dots. It was totally new for the brand. We never done it before. And like all of our branding, except for the actual boxes themselves, included halftone.

13:34And like, I think that was just a 2023 thing and I don't necessarily think it will persist but it makes it so much more interesting and fun to allow the brand to be the living breathing creature that it really is.

13:51We might go into retail scale nationally which is what we're doing right now and find out that people are deeply confused by our brand and then we'll iterate from there but it hasn't happened yet. So we just kind of continue to let ourselves just go wild and follow basically our hearts and our inclinations with all of our branding. But I feel like that fits with how you are in the category, right? You're coming in completely new, completely different. And to your point, like if you did work with an agency, the agency would have left a long time ago, iteration five six. So yeah, no, I love it. It perfectly aligns with how you are and how you run the team, which I think might be a surprise to our listeners because the impact Fishwife had on social media is huge.

14:42They might think it's a giant corporation with hundreds of employees and you actually keep the team super small and scrappy. So talk to us about managing so much with such a small team. Yeah, it's a great point. And, you know, it works well for us now. Obviously, it is not going to work for everyone. But I think it goes back to, you know, I was the only employee at the business for the first year, I had a an interim operations person in Q4, who was amazing. But other than that, it was just me full time. And I think in that year, it was just a big lesson that one individual can really do a lot.

15:22I did a lot of things really, really terribly, which led to out of stocks. And, you know, I could not manage the operations of the business for a very long time, which is obviously why you hire people. But I did learn, you know, one person can really have autonomy and just be prolific in their work. And, you know, I built the team every time there was something glaring, usually ahead of when it becomes a real issue. But when I could see that we were going to have a big gap, I would bring someone in and not really a moment before that. And I think that sort of incremental team growth strategy, it has just resulted in every Fishwife full-time team member, there are five of us now, truly feeling like they are founders in their own right because they are.

16:13Like, you know, Jack, my head of operations, is the founder of Fishwife's operational arm. You know, Lauren, who now does our social media and our brand partnerships, like she is now the founder of Fish Wife's entire social media presence and our collaboration strategy. And everyone on the team just gets so much autonomy to run their business, you know, with taking advantage of every ounce of their creativity and ability. And I think when you do that, you know, people really just rise to the challenge. So I think that the strategy has worked for us thus far. We'll see, we'll bring on, you know, we're planning to bring on just one more full-time person this year.

16:54But I think just like approaching the business and hiring with the mindset of let this person discover their entire potential at Fishwife, you know, Fishwife should be a place where they can absolutely, you know, have the most power that they will ever have, You know, obviously, hopefully they'll all start their own businesses one day. But I think it just really, you know, motivates people to take advantage of the opportunity and maximize their potential. And it's just it's great for the business, obviously, but it's great for them. And I mean, I found it to be great for me personally to have that level of freedom.

17:33So why should not every member of the team have that? And it's really cool hearing about how scrappy and small the team is and how big of a splash Fish Wives launch has been. And I'm very excited to dive even deeper onto your relationship with suppliers. Before we do that, I just wanted to take a moment to thank our listeners for tuning into the show. Make sure to subscribe or follow Shopify Masters wherever you're listening now and share this episode with a friend. We love reading your reviews and comments, so make sure to leave your thoughts on the show as well. Thank you so much. So apart from growing a community online, you actually have to build your own supply chain.

18:22And you came from the music industry with no connections to canneries or fisheries. So how did you approach the first supplier to bring them on board? It's a great question. I would say this is definitely the hardest part of, I mean, our business, but any CPG business is finding co-packers. There is no directory for co-packers. People are not interested in sharing information about their co-packers because IP protection is so limited in our industry that you really have to scrap it together in terms of supply chain. You really have to dive into the Internet. You really have to use any possible connection you can to find your manufacturing partner.

19:04And it is not easy. So it's kind of a good, helpful barrier to entry, I think, because it kind of shows you right from the outset kind of how hard building a business is going to be. So you really have to want to do this and commit to it. Yeah, you really have to want to do it. But yeah, I think someone once gave me the advice, if you can not do it, don't do it. Because it will be, you know, decades of your life. Some of the best decades of my life, at least, but it really is, you know, you got to put your blood, sweat, and tears into it, obviously. So in terms of identifying our co-packers, you know, it really was such a story of scrapping it together.

19:48Like, the way that I went about it was literally just asking anyone I knew if they knew someone in the seafood industry, a fisherman, etc. in the U.S. And then eventually, through doing that, found our first cannery in Oregon. Then otherwise, to find our first cannery in Spain, just did a bunch of Googling and searching around the net to find one. And I think, you know, the challenge that a lot of businesses have is getting these co-packers to take them seriously, which I think in many industries is really, really challenging. I think in our industry, there hadn't been a groundswell of energy and people reaching out to co-packers, unlike something like, let's say, you know, sparkling water or cereal or, you know, more saturated categories.

20:34these canneries had not really been approached for the most part by American partners or partners looking to you know grow yeah just grow a Tennessee food business in the U.S. so we had it I think relatively easy to get people to you know start working with us that being said most co-packers have MOQs MOQs minimum order quantities so originally when I was speaking to canneries in Europe, I was hearing, you know, we have a 200 ,000 unit MOQ or a 50 ,000 unit MOQ or a 25 ,000 unit MOQ. And for someone that, you know, does not have a bunch of cash laying around to buy, you know, tens of thousands of cans of cash, that was very intimidating.

21:21Also, because, you know, when you are just starting, you want to make sure, again, that you really do have a market before investing, let's say, you know, 50 grand, wherever you can get that from, into buying lots of product. So the way that, you know, I ended up hacking around that was working with micro canneries in the US that had lower MOQs. And then we sort of just scaled gradually, and either scaled up those canneries by, you know, partnering with them and supporting them in purchasing new machinery that we were going to use and that they could use to make their own operations efficient, or starting to work with bigger canneries over time when we could comfortably accommodate those MOQs.

22:05Yeah, no, one step at a time, one cannery at a time. So definitely makes sense. I think the other aspect of the community building is also, you know, there's the online community, the network of suppliers, and there's also this community of either food writers, reviewers that really love Fish Wife. So how do you approach community building with that aspect of the business as well? Yeah, I mean, I'm really kind of a one-trick pony with all this stuff, which is that I really encourage founders to just do it by themselves for the first year and do everything by yourself. when you do that when you start by reaching out to let's say journalists directly which is what i did for the first two years of the business they're hearing from the founder and whether your business is you know your business is probably tiny or non-existent to begin with but just the fact that you are the person building it um they you know it puts you in a better a much better position to get journalists interested than if you know maybe you hired a publicist from the get-go.

23:14And then for them, it's just, you know, hearing from, you know, they hear from publicists all day long and actually hearing from the source might be a little bit more interesting. And I do apply that thinking to our influencer outreach, our buyer outreach. You know, I did that all solo for the first, you know, year to two years. And again, like it was, it was because we didn't have resources to have more of a team, but it was also because I knew that if you build the relationship from the core of the business, from the founder, they're going to feel a more genuine connection.

23:58And I would say the same thing about social media. Obviously, some people are more comfortable running social media than others. But at the end of the day, I really do think if you can run your own social media from the outset, even if it is a little bit uncomfortable for you, you'll be the one getting those DMs. You'll be the one, you know, expressing your genuine thoughts. And authenticity will always ring true. So anyway, to answer your question more specifically and more tactically, I would research journalists that had written about, you know, similar things. Maybe it was, you know, beautiful olive oil or an alcoholic beverage or, you know, other tin fish brands.

24:38And I would find their email somehow or I would guess their email and I would write a press release and reach out to them directly and make a very curated emails. And you can find templates for press releases online and just make sure that when you're reaching out, you are personalizing every email. and then as you expand as a company, as you scale, I think those journalists still feel that deep connection to you because, you know, three years ago, they had written your first, let's say, food and wine piece or Bon Appetit piece that you pitched directly to them. So that is definitely my broken record advice that I would apply to basically everything.

25:17I totally agree because I think as a founder, reaching out yourself sets you apart because people hear from PR agencies all the time. What's your approach for making a cold email less cold? Yeah, of course. I mean, I think I would say, you know, let's say Florence Fabricant at New York Times, who I pitched in, you know, I think probably February 2021 for our first launch of Smoked Rainbow Trial. You know, I reached out and said, and this is the template you can use for everyone. You know, hi, Florence. My name is Becca. I'm the co-founder and CEO of this new Tinfish company. You know, this is a little bit about me.

25:55I loved the piece you wrote about this, this, and this. And I thought you might be interested in hearing about Fishwife because of these reasons. If you're interested, you know, let me know. I'll send you some samples of the product. And here you can find all of the details of the company, myself, and the product below. So I would say, like, preface the email with a very colloquial introduction that speaks directly to a piece that the journalist has written. Offer them samples, sometimes even in the subject line, because, I mean, who doesn't love getting samples? And then include all of the information in a deeply organized way in the body of the email sort of below that initial warm, not actually warm, but somewhat as warm as possible introduction.

26:47And I did that hardcore like to hundreds of journalists. And it really, that's how we got all of the press that we got for the first year. Yeah. Amazing. I love that. So practical, like to the point you spell out what you're there to do. Love it so much. And then we obviously have to talk about another successful pitch after pitching so many journalists, you got to pitch on Shark Tank. What are some things that founders might not see on TV and that they could potentially be surprised by throughout the whole Shark Tank experience? It was so much fun. I love Shark Tank. So the timing was good because I had spent the previous summer leading up to the filming actually doing a fundraise, which if people can figure out how to coordinate, I would definitely recommend because you're very hot on your numbers and very much in the pitching mode.

27:45I think any founders that listen to this will resonate with, you know, there's kind of fundraising mode and non-fundraising mode. And when you're in fundraising mode, you are pitching, you know, eight hours a day and you are just, you have it down, you have it memorized. It's like kind of scary. I like was definitely pitching in my dreams last summer. But so anyway, Shark Tank, it takes a ton of preparation. You have to really, you know, invest a lot of time in getting prepared for it, but it has just been so impactful. You know, since we aired, I think it just was a real opportunity for the, you know, hundreds of thousands of folks in the Fishwife community to really rally around the brand and say, you know, I've been supporting this brand for three years and I'm so excited to see it you know, kind of start to touch a national scale, or at least that's how I'm interpreting it.